“I keep many secrets.”
I spill the thing that has been gnawing at my conscience for some months now. “My fighter name is to distance myself from my family on Old Mars. For some years now my old man, a merchant, has owed a Cogwerk gangster a ton of credits. Was wondering how much it’d cost to get a clone made of him. I’m thinking he could fake his own death when the creditors come to collect by sending the clone out in his place. What makes the problem a little more interesting is that particular mob has been in a turf war with Shogunate Yakuza over who will dominate piracy on a specific trade route involving a gate between Sol and Alpha Centauri.”
I pull out a star chart and laugh. “The Meiji Yakuza owed my clan a favor from this time we saved their Kumicho’s* favorite son from an assassination attempt; I collected on it by choosing to have them grant dad amnesty and a new identity provided he gives them a permanent lifetime discount on his wares; they took care of all the falsified background info to make things look legit, you see?” I shrug. “Their front business is as a zaibatsu that distributes Dilophos parts to Star Factories. It’s my last favor to the b*st*rd, since I’m sick of loaning him increasing sums of money.”
“A clone is easy and raising interest is a poor way to do business, I may just send a few thousand clones down that gateway to discourage piracy.” Drake smiles viciously, “After all why should the clans be the only ones to know the might of my forces.”
I laugh pounding both hands on the table in exclamation “That would be awesome! However, before unloading the dogmechs of war, I would like to point out to you, the Kumicho of that Yakuza chapter is offering to make this very lucrative to us if we flush out his Cogwerk rivals. I think I have his business card on me.” I pull it from my pocket. Hagane Shin Gunto, Lord CEO of Hagane Metal and Aerospace.
“True lucrative is nice too. Hmmm flush out rivals… My infiltration clones could be of some use there. Also I could bait a trap. Have the AI’s put in a tempting niode shipment with minimal scheduled support and in actuality have some of my more… deadly experiments be the actual shipment.”
“I like that. You know who else might like that, is Gunto’s boy, a hotshot with a bootlegged Smilodon named Sutenresu-kō. I could patch you through to him, got him on speed dial here; He’s a long time fan of your weapons too by the way.”
Drake smiles, “I always like to meet my fans. Well except for the ones that want to incarcerate or kill me, those fans I avoid.” Drake laughs the takes a sip of his favored tea.
“He’s always been there to put in a good word for the Shogunate Diet to keep Samurai Mecha off the Emperor’s sh*tlist so I figure this’ll be good for all involved.” I dial the wealthy young man up on my comm and plug it into a holo projector on Drake’s table to have it be a vid conference.
“Sutenresu is basically an otaku when it comes to mecha and I predict he will be pumped to get to meet one of his favorite designers.” I explain to Drake as the number de-encrypts then dials.
“Drake-Sama?! You got a meeting with Drake-Sama? Arigato Myco.”
“It’s nothing Sutenresu. Drake and I go back a bit.”
“Indeed we do, copilot designs, wyrm fighting, suspicious death investigations and inventing of the future.” Drake smiles his charming smile. “Nice to meet you, young man.”
“Wow. Uh, If I sent you the doujinshi manga I want to make of that story, could you sign it?”
Su is really geeking out at this point.
“Send it through Myco and I’ll sign it for you.” A quantum fax starts humming as Sutenresu and I both punch in coordinates on each of our ends. The comic’s title is Drake Novum: Action Scientist! and the cover shows a stylized image of Drake leading an army of clones to fight some exotic large kaiju monster or other.
Drake takes the manga and signs it passing it back to Myco, picks up a pad writes something and hands it to a clone. “See to this now, get all the other clones on it too.”
“Listen Su,” I tell his hologram as I pass the now-autographed comic back through the quantum fax, “the real reason we called you up is I heard your father is having a bit of a minor problem involving Cogwerk pirates on the Shogunate gated trade route between Sol and Alpha Centauri.”
He suddenly switches to a more serious mood. “Indeed Myco San. Our forces at best have only managed to hold them at bay thus far.”
Drake sits quietly his head cocked to one side as he listens to the two men talk.
Sutenresu perks up a bit and asks Myco a question “Does Drake Sama know about your past yet?”
“Yeah, you can tell him my real name if you want. It’s probably not going to leave this room.”
“Before the accident Myco was a biotech worker named Luke ___[last name withheld].”
“That’s ancient history Su. I doubt Drake would be interested in that. I mean, sure I published a few papers on recombination of Forerunner genes but most of those got redacted when I got transfected. Come to think of it though, that might help us out in one of our projects, what say you Drake?”
“It could, I do like researching the Forerunners along with a few of the other cultures I found evidence of.” Drake takes another sip of his tea.
A shoji screen slides and Hagane interrupts his son, evidently having just gotten into the house. “Sutenresu?! Have you finished your cram school assignments for the evening?! That private mecha academy I send you to isn’t cheap! Get off the vidscreen and back to your drills for the tutor.”
“Sorry father,” Sutenresu admits, kowing before his powerful patriarch and moving away from the vidscreen.
Hagane takes over sitting cross legged where his son had been at the console and is surprised but also pleased to see myco and Drake are who he was talking to on the other end.
“Oh! Hello Myco ...and, Drake Novum Scientist?? This is a rare pleasure.”
“Just Drake please.” “You’ll have to forgive that. It’s a Shogunate custom to be very ceremonial about people’s names” Hagane explains with a laugh. “Did my boy sucker you two into helping him with his homework?”
“I understand, but Drake is my only name, the rest was supplied because the institute wouldn’t accept that I only had a single name.” Drake laughs. “No, he did ask for my autograph but no homework questions.”
Lord Hagane furrows his brow sighing “Though I laugh, business is not going so well for my business as of late.” he adds, leaving the meaning of it deliberately ambiguous. “My enemies are younger and more numerous. I am an old gangster these days. However, although old I do possess considerable political and business clout in my section of Shogunate Space. I am nowhere near retiring yet.” He makes a gesture “Those who would replace me most often find a hyper-accelerated chunk of ferrite lodged in their skulls.”
“I use a rail gun myself to remove said head, makes a nice satisfying sound as they splatter all over the place.” Drake pulls out his hand rail gun and sets it on the table next to his teacup.
“Hahaha, Drake, you sound like a man after my own heart with such a lovely killing technique. If I was younger, I’d probably ask for you a position in my organization. As it stands though, this is a bit more pressing. I hate the Cogwerk pirates. They are interfering with our Hagane trade chapter on Alpha Centauri. I don’t suppose the offer of an even trillion credits to eliminate that annoyance would interest you?” Hagane, or rather the holographic projection of him, pours himself some virtual green tea. “My associates and I would be most… grateful” he adds.
“That would interest me very much.” Drake picks up his data pad and punches up some projections, “Yes, with that amount I can begin work on my next three projects with ease. Even split with my friend Myco.”
“In the old days, most well-known artisans had patrons or benefactors. You’ve a Shogunate friend in Hagane Metal and Aerospace Drake-San.” Hagane concedes while doing a ceremonial bow as he ends the call.
“Well thanks Drake. I think you’d have better use of the credits than me though but I’d be willing to accept a stipend” I say to him raising an eyebrow “particularly for future large scale endeavors like the Hypocaust chassis.”
I remember something else “Drake, when Lord Hagane said that, he was actually stating that nobody from his Syndicate will attack any of your ships or mecha in the territory they occupy on penalty of torture; he’s whitelisted you. You caught that, right?”
Drake nods, touched by the honor shown him, his mind already calculating how much this would benefit him. “Thank you.”
“Hey, what are friends for? No problem. We’re lucky though. Last time Hagane contracted my services out it was to babysit his brat all day in a Megazome while he settled some particularly violent negotiations to consolidate his chapter’s power under-the-table; took most of my patience not to throw him from the airlock. Kid can chatter alot when he gets excited.”
“I would have cloned him then killed the clone before his eyes to let him know not to annoy me anymore, well I hope that I would kill the clone you can never tell the difference at times.”
“Have you ever worked with Shogunate corporate entities before Drake? It’s… different from the Hegemony or Cogwerk Society. Yes.” I laugh.
“I can’t say that I have worked with them before.”
“You’ll notice that it’s quite often like that, even amongst the non-Yakuza ones. Each industry over a certain size traditionally has got its business Daimyos; Hagane is a little old fashioned” I conclude, finishing my tea.
A clone comes in hands Drake a data pad he looks over it smiles, “Have my Antithesis powered up I’m making a gate trip. Well my good Myco glad that you could come by looking forward to work on our other projects and the trap will be set in a few days for those Cogwerk guys.”
“As usual buddy, pleasure doin’ business with ya.” I offer my hand to give a forearm handshake, manly style. Drake accepts but Blue Wrath refuses, flinching a bit..
As Myco is escorted out he notices the lab noises are gone and that each room he passes is empty. Hmm, must be all loading his mecha for the trip. The heavy doors open and waiting, numerous tracks from transport vehicles all heading towards the gates. The clone with Myco seems anxious to get back to the hangar.
“Lad, I know Drake’s a stern taskmaster and I’ve no exact fondness toward clones but you’ve been a good sport. Here, I’ll give you one of my electro-blades for the trouble.” I say, fetching it from the cockpit of the Ammonite I’d arrived in.
The clone politely refuses, but says, “Quantum faxes can be traced…” He then turns and hurries toward the hangar fearing to be left behind.
As I leave that moon’s atmosphere I see the area where the lab had been standing detonate.
Sorry Drake. I guess some of the Trillion credits is going into a new facility.
Submitted by Mycobacter, Drake Novum Scientist #712744, #706289